Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic, Vertigo, is not only the greatest film ever made (Citizen Kane comes close, but lacks Vertigo's emotional impact), but is perhaps also the greatest work of art ever produced by any civilisation.Critic Dave Kehr of the New York Daily News has said about Vertigo: "For those who have never seen Vertigo, here is evidence that movies can occupy the highest plane of artistic expression."
When it was first released by Paramount in 1958, Vertigo didn't do so well at the box office. Audiences, and especially critics, didn't "get" the subtlety and pathos created by Hitchcock for Vertigo's highly stylised, self-contained, universe. That same year, critics also overlooked Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, as gritty as Vertigo was glamourous, but just as visually striking. Both films were clearly ahead of their time.
Yet, from the early 1960s - when Vertigo went out of circulation, due to legal entanglements - until 1983 (when the picture was re-released by Universal Studios), Vertigo grew in stature as a great film. Even from the day it was released, it had a core following, as obsessed with the film as James Stewart's character, Scotty Ferguson, was with the cool, subdued Kim Novak. Vertigo has represented to millions of viewers the ultimate in aesthetic experience: A visual feast of light colour (presupposed by Dali and Vermeer), undergirded by Bernard Herrmann's hauntingly romantic, Wagnerian, score, fans are most drawn to Vertigo's ingenius plot (which I won't give away here!) and its gut-wrenching themes of loss of identity, love and even life.
In 1996, the team of Robert Harris and James C. Katz restored Vertigo to the splendour of its 1.85:1 VistaVision original negative (printing in 70mm) and re-recorded its sountrack in DTS digital stereo, enhanced by THX. From the opening credits, where Saul Bass' geometric patterns almost jump off the screen, and the scene where we first see Kim Novak wearing the lustrous emerald-green gown created by Edith Head, we're already hooked.
This movie is totally implausible, a charge which critics often levied against Alfred Hitchcock. But, as Hitchcock once said, the entire essence of romanticism is its implausibility. "I don't film slices of life," the master of suspense once quipped; "I film slices of cake." For those who haven't yet seen Vertigo, try and resist the temptation to see it on video first, particularly if you know of a screening nearby. This is a picture which demands to be seen literally as it is figuratively: Larger than life.
Last year, the American Film Institute rated Vertigo as No. 61 on the list of their 100 greatest American films. My own personal rating would have been No. 1, even ahead of Citizen Kane (which was AFI's No. 1 film of all-time). Strangely, Touch of Evil must still be ahead of its time; It ranked out of the top-100 in their "also-ran" list of 400 films.
If you can't resist the temptation of seeing it on video first, or if
you live in the remote reaches of Siberia, the DVD is immaculately gorgeous
and the VHS is high quality as well, mastered in THX with Dolby digital
stereo. However, a warning: This is not one of those movies
in which you can get up and go to the fridge or pay attention to sporadically;
Vertigo demands your full attention, from beginning to end.
Otherwise, you'll miss something important. So, turn out the lights,
put on the surround-sound and get plenty of popcorn.
What's Your Obsession with Vertigo?
